In summer 2013 members of several ABC groups discussed the necessity of introducing an International Day for Anarchist Prisoners. Given there are already established dates for Political Prisoners Rights Day or Prison Justice Day, we found it important to emphasise the stories of our comrades as well. Many imprisoned anarchists will never be acknowledged as ‘political prisoners’ by formal human-rights organisations, because their sense of social justice is strictly limited to the capitalist laws which are designed to defend the State and prevent any real social change. At the same time, even within our individual communities, we know so little about the repression that exists in other countries, to say nothing of the names and cases involving many of our incarcerated comrades.

This is why we have decided to introduce an annual Week for Anarchist Prisoners on August 23-30. We chose August 23 as a starting point, because on that very day in 1927 the Italian-American anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in prison. They were convicted of murdering two men during an armed robbery at a shoe factory in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Their arrest was a part of a bigger anti-radical campaign led by the American government. The State’s evidence against the two was almost totally non-existent and many people still today believe that they were punished for their strong anarchist beliefs. Given the nature and diversity of anarchist groups around the globe, we have proposed a week of common action rather than a single campaign on a specific day making easier for groups to be able to organise an event within a longer target period. Therefore, we call on everyone to spread the information about the Week for Anarchist Prisoners among other groups and communities and think about organising event(s) in your city or town. The events can vary from info-evenings, screenings and benefit concerts to solidarity and direct actions. Let your imagination run free.

Last year, in the spirit of rising anarchist resistance, and with a nod toward honoring our fallen comrades from the past, we organized the first Comox Valley Anarchist Book Fair for one day on the weekend immediately following May Day. Once again, the book fair will be hosted on May Day weekend in conjunction with the Village Muse Bookstore and located in Cumberland (a rural village on Vancouver Island in Coast Salish territory). However, this year it will be expanded to two days (May 3 and 4, 2014) because one day of anarchy simply wasn’t enough!

As we enter 2014 there is even more reason to focus on resistance as we greet an ever growing number of anarchist revolutionaries and radical indigenous communities that are fomenting an escalating movement against capitalist development and the Canadian State. While the book fair is a place to check out and distribute publications, kick back and have a laugh, it is also a place to communicate face to face between comrades and further our individual and collective struggles towards personal and social transformation.

We welcome proposals for workshops, presentations, facilitated discussions and distro/book tables related to all aspects of anarchy; especially decolonization, subversion of patriarchy/gender relations, autonomous subsistence, and anti-resource extraction/corporate development schemes. All proposals must be sent to us by Mon Mar 10.

We seek to provide a kid-friendly space with a child-care zone, and workshop proposals directed specifically at kids are encouraged. On Sat night, there will be an open mic and DIY stage for all kinds of performances. In providing hospitality, we are working on setting up an outdoor camping site in the area and providing limited billeting for those who have special needs and no contacts in the Valley.

Jury selection in the NATO 3 conspiracy and terrorism case began this morning and continued until the late evening. In the morning, the prosecution announced that two charges (Counts 10 and 11) had been dropped. These were both unlawful use of a weapon charges. The defendants are now heading towards trial with 9 counts instead of the 11 they have faced since they were arrested in May 2012.

Jury selection will resume in the morning. The judge also stated that the trial itself will commence with opening statements on Tuesday, January 21st, so stay tuned for more information and plan to start packing the courtroom then!

The defendants seemed to be in good spirits and engaged in the jury selection process (to the extent they can be in this thoroughly disempowering system), despite the long hours today. Please take a moment to write* them a note of solidarity today to let them know you’ve got their back!

This week there are two political court dates going on in the United States we wanted to bring attention to, followed by about 30 minutes of METAL!!!!!!!! WOAH!!!!

First: on Monday, January 13th (date changed from broadcast time) the NATO3 will be facing trial, starting with the jury selection. There’s a callout for solidarity and support for the NATO3. The call out can be found at http://nato5support/wordpress.com . A past episode of the Final Straw talking about the basics of the case can be found at The Final Straw Website.

Second: on Tuesday, January 7th Shaka Cinque, known by the state as Albert Woodfox, will be facing a court date to determine if the earlier overturning of his conviction will be upheld in Louisiana or if he’ll continue his indefinite time in imprisonment in Solitary Confinement at the Angola Prison in Louisiana which has thus far lasted 42 YEARS. Shaka Cinque is the only remaining imprisoned member of the Angola 3, three prisoners imprisoned Black Panthers accused of participation in the murder of a prison guard in the early 1970’s. Robert Hillary King was released from prison when his case was overturned in 2001 and has written and spoken about the case of the Angola3 since. Herman Wallace served 41.5 years in solitary confinement for the case and died 3 days after his release near the end of 2013. More about the case can be found at http://angola3news.blogspot.com

The NATO 3 are scheduled to go to trial starting January 6th with jury selection. As you can imagine, this is a very stressful time for the defendants, as the state may or may not approach defendants with plea deal offers, and defendants gear up for trial with their lives on the line. They are also separated from family and loved ones during the holiday season, which is a very hard time for the incarcerated. Please mail cards (handmade or otherwise) to the NATO 3 defendants, and use the words ‘We’ve Got Your Back’ to let them know how much support they have out here as they near trial. This is an act of solidarity to keep defendants strong for trial, through our support. Here are their addresses:

Brent Betterly
#2012-0519001
PO Box 089002
Chicago IL 60608

Brian Church
#2012-0519002
PO Box 089002
Chicago IL 60608

Jared Chase
#2012-0519003
PO Box 089002
Chicago IL 60608

Please get your cards in the mail and flood the jail with words of support for the NATO 3!

If you would like to make a larger tax deductible donation, 8th Day Center for Justice has graciously offered to accept tax-deductible donations for us. To make your tax-deductible donation, please send checks or money orders to:

It has been almost 6 years since the last issue of Green Anarchy. During its 25-issue run, the magazine brought green anarchist ideas to North America and the world. It succeeded as an incubator of ideas and a real provocation for those both inside and outside of the anarchist milieu. In the intervening years, even with drastic changes in terms of green capitalism, technological advancement, and an ever-worsening ecological crisis, green anarchist and anti-civilization ideas have not been terribly visible.

We intend to reintroduce this green anarchist provocation. The new project will have a different orientation than Green Anarchy did. Rather than framing our theory and practice in the abstract world of historical and anthropological perspectives on civilization (or in a fetishization of primitive cultures), we begin in conversation and with our own personal experiences. Currently, in the English-speaking world, single-issue, campaign-based organizing dominates radical perspectives on the developing global ecological crises and resistance to domination’s ever-expanding encroachment. As anarchists, we desire to push the dialogue further and open a space to engage critically with the development of capitalism and the state, along with the dead-ends of environmental activism, in both the radical varieties and the more recent mainstream green “civil disobedience” movements.

We are a collective comprised of former contributors to Green Anarchy magazine, recent propagandists of a green anarchist persuasion, and other rabble-rousers. This publication will be editorially controlled by us and produced and distributed by Little Black Cart. We intend to release a biannual publication and we are asking for your help.

We want to hear about your experiences. Please send us stories of ecological struggle, anti-authoritarian earth-based coalitions, non-materialist anarchist practice, allied prisoners, and signs of the system’s meltdown. We are interested in developing critiques of civilization, the state, and technology; as methods of social control evolve and adapt, so must our understandings of them. We are also interested in a mixed medium of submissions such as original artwork, photography, poetry, etc.

The submission deadline for issue 1 is January 31stContact us via email
Or mail at us at
PO Box 3539
Grand Rapids, MI 49501

In the aftermath of 9/11, I pretty much dropped everything to produce media about the protests against the war in Afghanistan. However, I was clueless about the alter-globalization movement and that mass mobilizations had been happening all over the world for the two years preceding the Twin Towers attacks.

That is, until joining Indymedia in Atlanta.

Indymedia, or IMC, a decentralized network of radical journalists born out of the 1999 anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle, was now a worldwide phenomenon, and when the US was beating the drums of war, IMC centers became the megaphones for anti-war mobilizations.

The anarchists who staffed the centers introduced me to a new world of indy filmmaking that changed my life forever. Watching“Breaking the Spell,” a film about the WTO protests that was filled with “riot porn,” I kept thinking to myself, “Can they really do that? Is this shit legal?” I borrowed VHS copies of such gems as, “Crowd Bites Wolf,” “Fuck the Corporate Media,” and “The 4th World War,” and decided this was the type of media I wanted to make.

What made those films so exciting was that they were unapologetic about their politics. Anarchists were at the forefront of the action, not the cops or politicians. They displayed a creative celebration of movement victories and radical culture, normalizing the sentiments which I had previously felt somewhat alone in—a hatred for capitalism and authority, and an uncompromising love for freedom and social justice.

Over a decade later, however, it is sad to say that the world of radical anarchist filmmaking, which I had expected would develop by now, has not come to fruition. Maybe my expectations were set too high. After seeing the rapid global spread of IMCs, I imagined that anarchists from all over the world would pick up cheap cameras and pirated copies of Final Cut Pro programs and unleash a new wave of radical cinema. To be sure, the growth of citizen journalism has had a significant effect on world politics, but “radical anarchist cinema” doesn’t mean eyewitness video reports of police brutality or “livestreamed” protest events.

10:00am – 4:30pm
Saturday January 18 2014

►► 1st Surrey Anarchist Book Fair: January 18th, 2014.
There will be workshops and panels scheduled in parallel with the bookfair
and we are seeking radical book & zine distributors who are interested in a table
at the bookfair.Tabling Request Deadline–for inclusion in the printed schedule– is January 6th, 2014.

We welcome all requests, questions, comments, advice, offers of help/billeting/rides:Please contact us at <org@naasn2014.org>

1) We have two versions of the political prisoner birthday poster for October. Here is one version as well as an extra spooky negative image one for Halloween. As always, please post this poster publicly and/or use it to start a card writing night of your own.

Some News And Updates:

2) Jorge Cornell, whose birthday was last month, was transferred two weeks ago. If your birthday card for him was returned, please resend it to this address:

3) Political prisoner Herman Wallace of the Angola 3 has been given less than 2 months to live and he’s now on hospice care inside the prison. He, along with one other person, has been in solitary confinement for the past 41 years. He wrote this heart wrenching statement recently and there’s some petitions folks can…

In late July of 2012, our friend Steve received a phone call from a man identifying himself as a FBI agent. He was told that a subpoena had been issued for him to appear before a federal Grand Jury investigating the vandalism of the Kenzo Nakamura Court of Appeals*. This phone call happened in conjunction with three other people being served subpoenas in Olympia and Portland, as well as house raids in Portland. Although Steve is a known anarchist in the Northwest, who has been subjected to state harassment before, up until this moment he has not been served or indicated as a suspect of the ongoing Grand Jury investigation targeting anarchists.

His life has been severely impacted by the course of events. He has made the choice to leave his former life behind in order to resist the Grand Jury on his own terms. This means that Steve has gone without face-to-face contact with his family, friends, and loved ones for many months.

The investigation and subsequent repression is still very much alive even though former prisoners, Maddy, Matt and Kteeo are now out of prison. The potential for criminal indictments remains a real possibility. Also, the effects of imprisonment and future threats of going back to prison, which could happen if any of the three are charged with criminal contempt, are not something that ends once one has left the prison walls behind.

While Steve has been doing his best to adjust to life in a new place, it has not been an easy transition. He is in a really rough spot right now, being thousands of miles away from his home and not knowing when he will be able to return. He has already been physically and verbally harassed by the state forces in his new location, and is having a hard time finding employment due to not having status and language barriers. At the same time, he has been doing his best to keep his spirits high and is grateful for all the support and solidarity he has received so far, and for the new friends he has made. The fact remains that life inside capitalist society is expensive, and at this point he has no income whatsoever. Please consider donating to Steve so he can take care of his rent, bills, transportation costs, and everything else this life forces us to pay for. As little or much as you can, anything helps.

*It is important to note that Steve stands in solidarity and complicity with all those accused of damaging the Kenzo Nakamura Court House.